Nope. Iger admitted that maybe things went too far in the direction of politics, but that's hardly the reason for declining revenues at ESPN. That can be directly attributed to the decline in cable subscriptions, because ESPN gets paid a certain amount of money by cable companies for each subscriber they have. Since 2011, ESPN has lost about 13 million cable subscribers, their share of which was $8 each. That's money ESPN got from cable subscribers whether they watched ESPN programming or not.
There's a lot of good information here as far as numbers and what impacts the financials (for example, paying for MNF and NBA rights costs espn nearly 3.5 BILLION dollars.) None of the financial realities have anything to do with whether or not their coverage skewed too far into politics. And their live sports coverage has never been associated with politics.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/f...vide-bristol-tradition-woke-reformers-1121634
Meanwhile, the cost of ESPN's programming — live sports — has risen as more players (from
Amazon to Twitter) vie for rights. Sports accounted for 91 of the top 100 live-viewed TV programs in 2017. ESPN averaged nearly 15 million viewers for six college football bowl games last year, while this year’s NBA Finals were the most watched in two decades.
Outside of 2016, when Fox News took the top spot, ESPN has been the No. 1 cable network in primetime since 1999. Still, the network pays $1.9 billion annually for
Monday Night Football and $1.4 billion a year to the NBA. It's why Disney is pouring resources into OTT platform ESPN+, which launched in April and is doing better than expected, say executives, though they won't disclose subscriber numbers yet. ESPN remains the digital sports leader, too, with more than 70 million uniques in May.
But ratings for its studio programming have inherently softened as scores and highlights proliferate on apps and social platforms like House of Highlights, recently purchased by Turner's Bleacher Report.
The financial contraction has exposed rifts inside ESPN. In conversations with staffers, a narrative has emerged of a network divided over how to best navigate an increasingly on-demand, OTT future.
The Six, as Smith and Hill's iteration of
SportsCenter was known, was an experiment born of necessity. But so is Scott Van Pelt's midnight
SportsCenter, and it was up 50 percent in May.
And execs are quick to note
SportsCenter is not just a linear brand anymore;
SC on Snapchat reaches nearly 3 million consumers a day, with 80 percent of them younger than 35. Morning show
Get Up! — based at a new studio in Manhattan — and
High Noon, with Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre, are distinct departures from
SportsCenter. They revolve around the relationship between the hosts — and not around the highlights of the day. (Washington, DC-based producer Erik Rydholm, who is given wide latitude at ESPN, has created and oversees many of these shows including
High Noon, Highly Questionable and
Pardon the Interruption.)
